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Doing Business in Africa

According to the World Bank’s annual ”Doing Business” report in 2005, Sub-Saharan Africa was considered the most difficult place in the world to do business when it comes to needlessly time-consuming procedure. Back in 2005, the world bank’s report examined regulatory obstacles and ranked performance using criteria such as ease of starting and closing a business, hiring and firing workers, protecting investors, enforcing contracts and getting credit. As a result: 40% of Sub-Saharan’s economy was informal. In addition to that, big foreign investors negociated and held all the good -and special- deals, while small local businessmen were kept outside the pool and were left to cope with unfriendly rules that make it hard for them neither to succeed nor to survive. As a matter of consequence, five years ago, the Sub-Saharan part was still considered a risky place to do business.

Five years later, what is the situation now?

Fast forward in 2010, despite the global economic recession still around the corner, for global players, chinese companies and other european economic actors, the playground in africa is frankly safe. Just to name a few, in the banking sector, Standard Chartered Bank and the MTN corporation in the telecommunication business are doing just fine. And how about local entrepreneurs and foreign investors?

The reality is that China is taking on Africa. Period. Between 2001 and 2009, China has invested more than US$106 billion in various sectors throughout the vast continent.

And everybody is not happy.

Here is a poll, tell us what you think about the african economy in this new decade?